Leon Eisenberg

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Leon Eisenberg, American psychiatrist and professor (born Aug. 8, 1922, Philadelphia, Pa.—died Sept. 15, 2009, Cambridge, Mass.), was a professor of social medicine known for his studies of children affected by autism and for his work as a human rights advocate. He conducted the first clinical trial testing psychiatric drugs in children. Eisenberg received an M.D. (1946) from the University of Pennsylvania. He later served in the U.S. Army Medical Corps before completing a residency in psychiatry. In 1954 he received a fellowship to study with American psychiatrist Leo Kanner at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, Md. There Eisenberg abandoned psychoanalysis—what was then the core of psychiatry in the U.S.—in favour of more rigorous approaches to psychotherapy that could be validated scientifically. In 1967 he became chief of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, where he was made professor emeritus in 1993.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Karen Sparks, Director and Editor, Britannica Book of the Year.

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